Letter to a former soul mate and my once best Christian friend.

Originally written: 2011.

Dear angel, "jetcity" girl, friend,

You were like a sister, almost like a mom. You treated me like a soul mate. Our meeting of minds, your concept of a "romantic friendship", your idea of a "universe full of love" and "this is how the universe works". You made me understand friendship better, or so I thought - the way of being truly respectful towards someone.

You took me by surprise in many ways. You taught me how to put love before rational considerations and fear. I was already beyond most dogmatic thinking when we met, trying to embrace a progressive Christian faith, but somehow you managed to add something to that, showing me "compassion and understanding" as you used to say, leading me on to a place where more sunbeams were shining through the clouds. You preached love, not judgment. You were the friend who made me better at accepting "otherness" in people. Both of us agreed that most people just want to be happy, but you made me feel like this also about gay people - a domain where I felt restrictions, fear - and you took me beyond that fear. And I felt like this is what Christian faith is really about. I was the layman, you were the wise one. I felt like I was going to let you break down my walls of reason and skepticism.

But then I made that stupid mistake. It was intended to do away some suspicion you had raised about me, although you never explained your real thoughts, or where it came from. You let me feel like I wanted too much of you. Then I did something to show you that I would always respect you and your first love. But I did it in a foolish way.

I, of course, could not downplay the mistake. I was wrong. Mistakes are always just plain wrong, there is no point in denying that. Your own initial reaction - when I apologized and said sorry - was to say you weren't so much hurt, but you were humiliated. I know what humiliation is. I've known it from childhood. Anyway, the result was that instead of doing something that convinced you of a non-egocentric friendship, the resulting effect was the opposite, and I lost you. And there's no way to roll back history.

Your reaction was unexpected though. I suddenly found myself expulsed from your friend list, three shared Christian friends were taken away as well (although they had nothing to do with it), and the came this flood of sudden, new charges against me - things you never mentioned before. Weeks went by, filled with hurt and waiting - but at some point, I realized you had no plans to accept my regrets and amends. And I couldn't do much, because I was on the wrong side of the gap - the one who errs is always with his back to the wall, at the mercy of fate.

This was the time I got in trouble with this vision of a "universe full of god's love". Because regardless of how great God might be, what we can see of God is what we can see through the actions of the people we know, adore, appreciate. And since even a grand universe of love was not enough love to forgive a friend a stupid mistake, what does such a "universe-sized god" even mean? What is there in it, that gives it a value beyond any new-age kind of parlance?

Sure, I do remember how you said afterward: "It was never meant to hurt you". Then again, how could it possibly not hurt, when a mistake cannot even be met with some grace by someone who believes in "a universe full of gods love"? Because, whatever forgiveness is, it must include something like abandoning your own right not to be hurt - and I can't see how forgiveness can make any sense if that part is missing. We can even forget about the word forgiveness itself - because nothing justifies forgiveness, but the point is entirely foreign to it: a totally unjustified reaching out of the victim, to the wrongdoer, saying "I know you didn't mean it that way". It is because nothing justifies forgiveness that it unravels its dear secret - which no theological construct whatsoever can match, outdo, or do away. The wonderful simplicity of this cure for humanity's complex inter-relational subjectivity is at the core of whatever material is added to make up for a more theatrical terminology.

So where was the grace? Or are we really supposed to be perfect? Without grace, the wrongdoer - whether or not he intended to do wrong - is always already lost. So is forgiveness then rather this Christian dogmatic construct in which only those who don't need it, get it? Do those we consider "outsiders" to the circle of desirable Christians remain deprived of it, as they are already considered wandering outside the reach of forgiveness? The way you were talking, I always thought this was the kind of Christianity you disliked. And yet, forgiveness as a rather pure (or puritan), formal application, applicable only in cases we have not been subject to any hurt or humiliation, seems to be the model you applied. Were you, after all, just a Puritan Christian, rather than the progressive believer I thought you were?

For you, the truth may be clear. Only the forgiver (or non-forgiver) can tell the difference between broken trust and rejected trust. You call it broken. I cannot know what it has to be called.

Addendum, 2014.

That was years ago. It took me 4 years to get completely out of the shackles of the Christian faith delusion in which I was brought up.

I will probably never know what you had in mind. "Choose love" is the thing that you said so often, on MySpace. But this was not for people who were still toying around with doubts, with atheism, etc. People like me may not really deserve the friendship of a person as mature as you were. I get that. You were "just like an angel... You float like a feather in a beautiful world" (to quote Radiohead). I was no match for your friendship.

But did you really have to treat me like a piece of dirt?

You see, all I was asking for was forgiveness in a true, realistic sense - the graceful gift of restoration for the soul. I was essentially asking you to respect me as I am: a person, totally imperfect, yet still being something more than my mistakes. I expected nothing obsessive, just something very human. You could have restored me, then break away with any good excuse, or brake away from the online social world altogether, as you did anyway. But you decided that it was better to leave me with no access to your "universe full of love".

I think that you did not dare to risk anything. The risk of living, after all, inevitably includes hurt. And whoever attempts to eliminate that part, will inevitably find out that hurt and humiliation will "impose" the need for protection, or mitigation, above all other possibilities. This is the only way I can explain why you could not offer this grace, once it did not feel comfortable. That would have been okay, if just I had realized in time that you were, still, a puritan mind of sorts. We only expect something from someone when that person creates certain expectations, as you did, explicitly.

I will always wonder why you never asked yourself the question "who is this person who made this mistake?" -- You might have realized it was someone who held you in high regard. You didn't have to erase me.

But it's all done now. Fly away, beautiful white bird, Go fly. Soaring on a fresh breeze, stretching your sparkling wings so regally. Fly, "float like a feather, In a beautiful world". I, for my part, didn't belong in your neighborhood. But I will remember you. Just like you - I, too, can live with pain and still see the beauty in little things.

In the end, the loss of Christian faith was not so terrifying. What I miss the most is the sense of meaning that I once had. That is harder to recover or replace - but daring to dream really helps. In exchange for taking full responsibility for my mistakes, I must also accept that hurt is a reminder that I'm alive. There's even joy in it because it is taking part in a community of vulnerable human beings. At some point, I think Dream Theater saved me with this beautiful line in one of their songs, "Some of us choose to live gracefully". I think that's where I will try to live - one of those little things that become big once you realize its immense reach.

And this is it. The past has gone, it leaves a trail. It's okay.

Your former so-called "friend", J.